Books: Ha-h'm

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF HORATIO HORNBLOWER by C. Northcote Parkinson. 304
pages. Little, Brown. $6.95.

Unlike their more evanescent brothers of the flesh, the great figures of
fiction are not covered by the laws of libel. Did not Sherlock Holmes
admirers helplessly endure odious allegations asserting that Dr. Watson
was a woman? Accordingly, anyone fond of Midshipman, Lieutenant,
Captain, Commodore or Admiral Horatio Hornblower naturally approaches
this new biography with suspicion. Will Britain's second greatest
seaman, one wonders, be spuriously presented, for example, as a
Hermaphrodite Brig? Or Nelson's long-lost younger brother?...